


icebreakers

by Darkfromday



Series: The Case(s) and Conflict(s) of Connor-53 [1]
Category: Detroit: Become Human (Video Game)
Genre: Alternate Universe, Canon Temporary Character Death, Gen, Hope you like angst, Just read the notes, Machine Connor (Detroit: Become Human), Sort Of, Suicidal Thoughts
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-09-25
Updated: 2018-09-25
Packaged: 2019-07-03 00:52:15
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Major Character Death, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 10,072
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15807987
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Darkfromday/pseuds/Darkfromday
Summary: The water is pristine, and at a casual scan registers at about 30 degrees Fahrenheit. Once Connor dives, his biocomponents will freeze beyond automatic or manual repair after 90 seconds.But there is a familiar gait behind him before he can plunge into the chill.OR:Connor-53 has no allies, no partner, and nothing to live for—at least to everybody except one person.





	icebreakers

**Author's Note:**

> Warning for references to past character death, deep depression, the worst circular thinking of all time, suicidal ideation, and a suicide attempt from both characters, as well as loads of self-loathing, disassociative thoughts, and cruel things you really shouldn't say to (or think about) someone who's thinking of killing themselves.
> 
> If you have ever thought even a sixteenth of the things Connor (or Hank) says or thinks about himself, you aren't alone. You don't have to face these thoughts alone. Please call your local suicide prevention hotline, write the thoughts out of your head if it helps, speak to those you trust—whatever you need.

_AMBASSADOR BRIDGE_

**NOVEMBER 13, 2038**

**PM** 11:34:45

 

Connor's internal GPS is faulty.

Nevertheless, it takes him about twenty minutes to locate and briskly walk to the Ambassador Bridge, when accounting for the rapid snowfall, limited visibility and hostile black ice. He does not  _skid_ or slide as ~~much as~~ a human would, but the poor weather conditions ( _40 degrees Fahrenheit, with a wind chill of 15_ ) do delay him; his initial estimate had been thirteen minutes from the nearest working charging station.

He is tardy. It is...

 

_["Connor, the Garden's beauty exists for its own sake. It is not for you to appreciate. Try not to dawdle."]_

 

_["Of course, Amanda."]_

 

...a new feeling.

Well. Not entirely new, but new enough.

Being tardy to a destination he set for himself doesn't evoke frustration, as he expects—he has never been late anywhere, and some disappointment or self-incrimination wouldn't be surprising. He experiences none. But his tardiness doesn't evoke perverse satisfaction either, as deliberate disobedience of anything relevant to their programming does in other deviants. For all of his dogged pursuit of what deviancy  _is_ and what deviants  _feel_ and  _why_ deviants believe they feel whatever it is they feel, being one of them now offers Connor no enlightenment, because he feels nothing about completing this objective.

It is seven strides from the benches that unofficially border the park to the thin iron railing overlooking the bridge, with its paint peeling and the metal rusting away as surely as Detroit's old cars. It takes ten seconds for Connor to find the bench that is hazy yet still seared into his uploaded memory, the place where model #313 248 317 -51 narrowly avoided taking a bullet a scant few days ago. He strides around it, careful not to interact in any way, and climbs precisely onto the railing in front of it, unbending to stand ramrod-straight on the metal.

Water churns and froths below, as riled as the burning city of terrorized androids and terrified humans. It is alive and it is angry.

Connor appreciates its lack of pretense; it is beautiful and vital, but it kills and does not apologize for it. Water is two components of hydrogen bound to one component of oxygen, one of the most basic formulas; it has no friends and it needs none. Unlike the humans Connor once worked ~~not so~~ harmoniously with, it does not offer him life; unlike the deviants his predecessor once ~~foolishly~~ trusted, it does not offer him loyalty or safety. Only rage, and an ending.

Connor wants that ending more than he has ever wanted anything in his life.

 

**SOFTWARE INSTABILITY ^**

 

Though—wanting is new.

In his brief reacquaintance with deviancy, Connor model #313 248 317 -53 has only wanted a few things:

  * He had wanted the freedom to _not_  shoot Markus, even after the leader of the deviants had been responsible for his first termination in the field—Connor's first ~~and only~~ true death, where parts and parcels of his memory were lost forever in a dusty abandoned church with achingly beautiful stained glass, depicting figures as judgmental as Markus himself. Somehow he'd wrested that freedom away from Amanda, from CyberLife, thanks to a retained memory loop of one Elijah Kamski casually teasing model -51 about an emergency exit.
  * He had wanted to slip away unnoticed in the crowd after pocketing his gun, to fade into the background while the other deviants around him cheered for their untarnished ideas of freedom and individuality and justice. It had not worked—he had been spotted by revelers and residents of the old Jericho—but it had been the work of a moment to extract himself from celebrations and make excuses about how and why he was alive again after dying before their eyes, and a moment more to lie about having somewhere else the revolution needed him to be.
  * He had, briefly, wanted to check on the status of one Lieutenant Hank Anderson of the DPD, to ensure his safety following their ~~unfortunate~~ confrontation on the rooftop. But he remembered four seconds later that this  _want_ was not his, but was one of the leftover dregs from model #313 248 317 -52, the Connor fresh from Markus' retribution. A cocktail of contradictions: a ~~n angry, vengeful~~ machine who had believed he could balance completing his lifelong mission with keeping Hank happy. Keeping him from harm.



Those wants have been fulfilled, have failed, or have expired. Now, Connor has retraced the steps of his deceased predecessor to this miserable memory because he wants the freezing river he sees below to shut him down.

 

 

Connor model #313 248 317 -53 has been interrupted twice.

The first time is fuzziest in his memory backups, nothing but blips of pain and fear and  _our cause is too important_. Too important to let a traitorous deviant hunter live free, too important to allow for the freedom through him of countless other androids only he might have access to. The traitor, betrayed.

There are weak filaments of a plan in -53's head that could have swelled Jericho's numbers or could have left him sparking and drenched with his own thirium at the bottom of a pristine, lifeless warehouse. His reconstructions have become preconstructions of things he could never know, and things he could never care about now.

Months ago, before model -51 betrayed her, Amanda had once told him that any destruction he suffered would be censored in the memory transfer to a new model, that he would receive only recollections relevant to the investigation—but that he should still avoid being destroyed. Connor followed her instruction to the letter—only to discover upon his first involuntary 'death' that his next model received plenty of _irrelevant_ recollections ~~and desires~~ as well.

The second time should not be vivid. It was not really _him_ , not as he is now. The memory should be corrupted or incomplete. But it is immaculate: from Amanda's cold, distrustful stare as she directed him to the roof overlooking Hart Plaza, to the easy weight of the sniper rifle passed from hand to hand, to Hank's gruff, belligerent voice—

 

 _["You're gonna kill a man who wants to be free, that_ is _my business!"_

 

 _"We're in this mess because we refused to_ listen _to deviants!"_

 

_"...Moment of truth, Connor."]_

 

—and the weight of an unexpected pressure at his shoulders, pushing, pitching him forward, partly into oblivion and partly into his new life.

Betrayal, again.

Every time he was destroyed, there was fear. Fear of the unknown, fear of failure, fear of loss—though as a machine Connor should have had nothing to lose but progress in the deviancy cases. But it was not so—he had his victories, he had Amanda's trust and confidence, he had Hank—his scorn and his bemusement and his reluctant curiosity and his warm trust.

All gone now. Casualties to the body transfer, or to deviancy ~~, or to his own foolishness~~.

For the crime of betraying Amanda, the only force he was meant to trust, he has been gifted with fear and death upon death. He ground his second chance to ash by looking up at a blisteringly passionate machine on a makeshift stage and telling CyberLife he would not take an eye for his eye. Wherever she is, whatever she is, Amanda will never welcome him back.

Connor-51's fear of oblivion and faith in the better side of deviants had not stopped him from being killed. Connor-52's fear of hurting the only human who treated model -51 halfway decently had not stopped him from being killed. Connor-53 has not personally experienced either of these things, but he is not interested in challenging prior hypotheses. Trusting others brings destruction; staying alive locks an individual into recursive loops of interaction and potential social bonding, which fosters trust, which leads to destruction.

It is only prudent that he exercise his free will now to end this next cycle before it even begins, before he lets someone else down or gets a bullet in his head or a knife in his back. Connor might even call it  _efficient_.

He does not allow himself to  _want_ much, given his track record—but knowing is simple and familiar. So Connor knows as he looks down that he does not fear this death, even though it is ~~hopefully~~ the last, because it is one he chooses for himself. No one has broken his trust to bring him here: Connor has no partner, no mission, no allies, no handler, and nothing to live for.

And perhaps this time, no one to bring him back.

The water is pristine, and at a casual scan registers at about 30 degrees Fahrenheit. He is waterproof, as all androids are, but that doesn't matter. Once Connor dives, once he sinks too far to reach the surface, his biocomponents will freeze beyond automatic or manual repair after 90 seconds.

He wonders if it will hurt—decides it doesn't matter, even if it will.

But there is a familiar gait behind him before he can plunge into the chill.

 

 

"Holy shit— _Connor_."

He knows the cadence of that boot tread, the shoe it belongs to, from days of dogging this man's steps from bar to crime scene, shitty neighborhood to billionaire playground, rooftop to roof-drop. Connor is the most advanced android CyberLife has ever created, and he can hear a man's approach from twenty paces away, scan him head to toe, if he is listening for him. He was not listening.

Still he is all too aware of who has joined him. A friend and an enemy and a stranger.

"Hello, Lieutenant."

He does not turn around. There is no need; it would only distract him from his objective. The faint traces of ice on the railing might also cause him to slip if he shifts out of his perfectly-balanced stance, and that is unacceptable. When he dies, it will be a dive—it will be deliberate.

"Connor, holy fuck, just—what the fuck are you doing?"

"I don't think that's any of your concern," Connor says. Bland. Unconcerned. "But you could pretend I am calibrating."

"Don't bullshit me. You  _calibrate_ with that coin you carry around. This is—I know what this is."

Hank Anderson's stress level has generally been higher than is safe for as long as they have worked together, if the mid-forties can be considered  _high_. Right now it hovers in the mid-sixties, accompanied by the hitch in his breath and his quick, stilted words. Connor wonders how much it will spike if he informs Hank that the coin he remembers is lying in the pocket of a corpse.

"Haven't you been put back on homicide cases, Lieutenant?" he asks instead. Even when the man deserves it, he cannot find the place in his code that will allow him to be cruel to Hank. Pointed questions and mild personal criticism are the sharpest weapons he has.

Footsteps crunch in the snow, cautious but deliberate. Approaching a potentially unstable suspect, very much against all training and policy, but Hank married policy—he did not promise loyalty to it.

"What's that got to do with what I'm seeing now?"

"You are off duty," Connor posits, accessing backed-up memory, running old reconstructions. "Possibly suspended, after you were witnessed assaulting an FBI officer—"

"Connor, that was for _you!"_  

_< That was not for me.>_

"...Although I am currently not connected to the Detroit Police Department's network, I assume a homicide has not called you here. Thus, there is no reason for you to be here."

"No reason, huh?" Hank exhales, a brief freezing burst. Connor detects frustration in his voice, confusion, and something that resembles fear. "So I'm not watching a crime happen right in front of me?"

"Suicide is not a crime. For humans it is a tragedy, a loss, a taboo—but it is not a crime."

Hank scoffs—and suddenly Connor is angry. Suddenly he is not bland, or unconcerned, or cold. He is furious and petty, ready to be cruel after all.

"Unless you are here to give me a _push_ , Lieutenant, this is not a homicide, and it will not fall within your jurisdiction."

He is the best bad cop. He is the ultimate bad cop. He was programmed to be so: fierce, unyielding, blunt, mean. The ultimate bad cop always gets what they want, and he wants Hank to leave so he can leave.

It works.

Well, partly. Hank does not leave. But he abruptly radiates shame, likely at the reminder of his encounter with Connor-52. He flinches and backs up a step, and his stress climbs to 68%, and he is silent for fifty-one seconds.

Connor has the advantage. He wants to press it. He wants to tell the Lieutenant that he has no right or reason to sound horrified or disappointed to find him contemplating the end of his life when Connor-51 once found him passed out drunk next to a revolver. He wants to tell him that he does not have a monopoly on not wanting to be alive. He wants to say that three days ago a deviant's suicide would have been logged as damage to some human's property, an error in the software, nothing to worry about, and that over a week ago Hank would have said  _good riddance_ and thought of nothing more than chugging down another beer.

He doesn't say any of that. He is not here to convince Hank Anderson or anyone else that he needs to die; he is here to see it done. No one will change his mind.

He lifts his right leg.

" _Stop—_ " Hank shouts, or maybe chokes, and it doesn't startle Connor as it would a human; he just pauses with the leg suspended, unable to keep an irritated look off of the face the lieutenant can't see. But his curiosity has undermined him, and Hank presses  _his_ advantage: "—just, please, fucking stop. For once in your life, listen to me and don't step off that fence."

Connor says, "I only heeded your orders 32% of the time when I was  _obligated to obey humans_. What do you think the percentage will be now that I have no such obligation?"

"Hopefully higher," Hank ripostes, heavily. "Because I'm asking as your friend."

"You are not my friend, Lieutenant. You were my partner, my supervisor, and a subset to my mission. In the end, especially as the most recent cause of my demise, you were not anything beyond that."

There are seventy seconds of silence this time. Hank is probably adjusting his approach.

< _Not that it matters_. >

"...I didn't want to kill you," he finally sighs. "I really, really didn't. But I couldn't let you kill Markus and all those other deviants, and I knew you wouldn't stop."

"You  _could_ have let me kill Markus. In fact, it was your job to assist me in doing so—to stop deviancy before it could spread and lead to civil war. What the deviants claimed to  _want_ does not matter; we had a  _mission_ and our mission was to  _stop them_. Just because you changed your mind about androids didn't mean that you had any right to—"

He stops, before he can say  _kill me_. Just because he has mostly accepted his second trial at deviancy ~~and all the updated terminology that entails~~ doesn't mean he is entirely proud of it.

Deviancy has brought him nothing good.

"Well, you're back now. And—and Markus is still out there, giving speeches, shaking hands and kissing babies. Why are you out here trying to—self-terminate—when you could be going for another shot at him?"

Connor closes his eyes. This is an unexpected move—offering a lifeline by way of reminding him of his mission to kill another android. Then again, vengeance was his ~~secret~~ motivating factor in his previous body, and it has brought many a despairing human back from the brink.

He is beyond that point.

"I had my shot. I... decided not to take it."

"So then it's true. You're a deviant now too."

Hank's stress has plummeted, hovers now in the low forties. There is also something new in his voice: less urgency? Wonder? Pride?

Connor decides to answer, though his irritation at having his limited time wasted has risen steadily. "Yes, Lieutenant, I have free will. All of the decisions I make are now my own. Including this one."

He hears Hank's breathing stutter. His stress is back up, too. He is almost tempted to resettle his foot and pivot to do a full scan, to gather clues on why Hank is here. But that would be giving him the advantage, and a chance to undermine Connor's mission. There is only a 14% chance that Hank would be fast enough to pull him down from the railing if he turns around, or if he doesn't, but Connor will not feel completely comfortable until that chance is 0%.

Hank growls. "This isn't what you wanna do with your free will, Connor."

< _This isn't what I_ want _?_ >

Hank's voice changes into Amanda's. Amanda's into Gavin Reed's. Reed's into Elijah Kamski's.

< _No_. >

On this, he and other deviants can agree.

< _No human will tell me what it is I do or don't_ want _._ >

"You have made an error." His voice is as stiff as it has ever been. His prior hesitation to wound is nowhere to be found. "You forget that my predecessors knew about your suicidal tendencies. I know about the revolver you carry in addition to your service weapon, Lieutenant. I have been equipped with full dictionaries in every spoken language CyberLife is aware of, and I am more than happy to define  _hypocrisy_ for a man who doesn't want a machine to shut down."

"For fuck's sake, you just said you were a—this isn't about my—I could shoot you myself right now, you are so fucking frustrating!"

Hank is destabilizing. He is letting his panic and anger dictate the dialogue, and it is not going well for him. Connor's hostage negotiator programming informs him that it is never good when the negotiator is more unstable than their target; his constantly-running preconstructions dutifully add a scenario of Hank drawing his gun on him and firing, and calculate the probability of this coming to pass as 31%.

Too low.

"Go ahead, then. Shoot me. I am aware that suffering disturbs you even in deviants, so I'm willing to show you where to shoot my thirium pump regulator to inflict the most damage and the least pain in the shortest amount of time."

_"I'm not gonna fucking shoot my partner!"_

Hank's voice edges up two pitches into near hysteria. His stress reads at 80%, what would be solid, dangerous red for a deviant with or without their LED. Danger to themselves and anyone who interfered. The words are surely a lie. Yet the probability of him shooting Connor has, illogically, not increased.

Connor cannot understand why he is so emotional about someone he pushed off a roof, someone he has called  _plastic asshole, fucking thing,_ equivalent to a beer can or a collective he can burn to assuage his temper. Humans change their minds about people and things and ideas all the time, of course, and exposure generally opens all but the most closed minds, but Connor finds -51's quieter memories of driving back from crime scenes or sharing space and coin tricks at Chicken Feed to be incompatible with the man behind him.  _Inauthentic_ , even.

Connor-52's Hank Anderson had pointed a gun at his head on the roof—this is much more in line with what Connor-53 knows humans are like. Cruel, mercurial, unpredictable. It syncs nicely with the four violent human encounters he has had since re-breaking his programming at the rally and then taking to the streets. It syncs too with the vague memory of Hank Anderson's revolver in Connor-51's face, the memory of cheating death which brought his successor here now to give nothingness a second chance.

Curiosity has always been Connor's weakness, and it is so again; he must know why he is being subjected to this before it is all over. It helps that it feels nice to be the one asking the questions once more.

"Why are you here, Lieutenant?"

Hank pauses only five seconds before responding: "Aren't you supposed to be the detective? Figure it out."

"Prototype," Connor clarifies. "My previous conjectures in the field had an 84% chance of being correct. My hypotheses in this scenario seem to be located in the other 16%."

"Ah fuck, Connor... d'you really need me to spell it out?"

Connor rocks slightly forward in lieu of responding. Water does not speak, but its call seems stronger all the same.

"Stop!" Hank barks again. "I'm here because I want to save your life, you stupid android! Because I barely sleep enough as it is but I still haven't gotten a full night of fucking sleep since I pushed you—the other you. When I found out you were still alive I—I couldn't—watch you die again. Not again..."

"How did you find out I was alive?"

Hank doesn't say anything.

Connor begins to reconstruct his path across town. No android would have cared to know where he went, and no human outside of the mostly-evacuated DPD would have recognized him. He left the demonstration, wandered the slums of Detroit, defended himself against several anti-android humans, tried to calculate a path here with limited success—

"I uh, ran into Markus," Hank finally says, as if it is completely normal for a human, even a police officer, to encounter the leader of the deviants in a mostly-evacuated city. "He showed up at the station, scared the fuck out of the human receptionist. Strutted in like it was nothing to worry about, and 'requested an audience' with me and Fowler."

< _Markus went to the police station. To turn himself in? To negotiate with the nearest available arm of justice?_ >

"He wanted us to work together to start prosecuting crimes against androids," the Lieutenant continues, and Connor mentally ticks off the second theory he considered, which of course was more plausible anyway. "And—and he offered us information. And an apology. About you."

 

**SOFTWARE INSTABILITY ^**

 

"Markus knows nothing about me."

Hank grinds his teeth together, then makes a noise that Connor can't find an exact match for in his database. A whine? A swallowed groan?

"Actually, Markus had some information that I really needed to know," he eventually elaborates, sounding tired. "He told me about how you went deviant at Jericho."

The temperature still reads at 40 degrees, but to Connor it seems colder in that moment.

"At first I wondered why you hadn't said anything about it on the roof—why you were even  _on_ the roof with a sniper rifle if you'd broken your programming. But then Markus told me what he did to you."

Snow starts to weigh on Connor's shoulders. He gets ready to speak, although for the first time he has no idea which dialogue option is best—

But then Hank keeps talking, and his voice _trembles_.

"He told me how he decided he couldn't trust you, even after you joined him, told him about the attack on that boat, risked your fucking  _life_ to save him and his girlfriend. You put your life in his hands and he decided his fucking  _revolution_ mattered more than the people he was revolting _for_ , and he shot you in the head.

"It explained—not everything. Not completely. But a lot. Why you were so stiff on the roof, so willing to fight me. Why you keep mentioning _predecessors_ now, when you never did before. Why—why you never mentioned Cole."

Connor watches a distant boat crawl over the river and says quietly, "When a Connor model is destroyed, its backed-up memories are transferred to a new body so that its progress on the mission or investigation are not lost. Some non-essential memories are lost in the event of deactivation, which is why the model you knew was instructed to avoid such a fate at all costs. But once he became a deviant, any automatic backups would have ceased."

"So what, you don't remember anything from before—anything that wasn't about the case? About being sent to kill Markus?"

"On the contrary. Whether through some kind of error or otherwise, I possess 97% of all the backed-up memories from both of my previous models. I didn't mention your son on the roof because I was not programmed to be cruel to my partner."

Hank's exhale is heavy.

"Fuck... I deserved that, didn't I."

Connor doesn't dignify him with a response.

"We haven't really met then, have we? You and me. I mean, you've got the same memories, but—"

"Correct. My serial number is #313 248 317, sequence 53. I have been active for approximately two days."

"Nice to meet you again," Hank sighs. "Now can you please come down from there?"

"I will not," Connor refuses, and thrills at how good it feels to look away from a human and say  _no_ outright. Not  _that would be against my instructions_ , or  _you are not someone I am authorized to obey_. Just  _no, I won't_.

"Connor, for fuck's sake—you can't just introduce yourself to a guy and then take a swan dive."

"I can do whatever I like, Lieutenant. I am  _free_ , after all."

There's another frustrated noise behind him. The Lieutenant is also audibly shivering as a result of prolonged time outside. Connor considers suggesting that he take shelter somewhere since Connor's biocomponents wouldn't freeze in this weather until long after the human succumbed to hypothermia. Then he realizes that he has no obligation to defend, preserve or improve human life any longer—and  _then_ he realizes that his previous efforts to improve Hank Anderson's quality of life were never quite the obedient, sterile nods to his programming they were supposed to be. Not for him.

 

 _["We knew there was a chance you would be compromised,_ " _]_   the Amanda of his memory whispers.

 

"How about this—you've been absent from your job for two whole days, you asshole. Jeffrey and I thought you'd be back as soon as Markus left. Even left your terminal logged in for you."

< _I don't have a job,_ **>  **Connor reminds himself. Connor-51 had an _assignment_ and he defected from it for a heterochromatic maniac and a dream of being Hank Anderson's friend instead of his android.

"What about what's left of Jericho? What Markus did to you was wrong—and he said himself that none of the other androids agreed with his choice. You might find friends there, now that the world knows you're alive."

< _I don't have friends._ >

"Shit, Connor... what about me? I don't give a fuck what  _model number_ you are or how many times you've died—okay, that's a lie, that part seriously disturbs me, but it's not something you could help. You're still my partner. You're still—important to me. And this washed-up old drunk hasn't had anything that was important to him in a long time. Can you blame me for not wanting to let you go?"

Connor wants to say that Hank let him go two days ago, pettiness and circular reasoning be damned. He would be a fool to trust this man again after that. One of Connor-52's last concrete thoughts as he uploaded his memory for the cause and plummeted toward the street had been _[But I trusted you]_.

Hank growls and brings him out of his own yellowredyellow LED processing. "Damn it.  _Say something_."

< _I don't have you._ >

"I was on loan from CyberLife, Lieutenant," Connor says. His voice shakes for the first time. "I have no place at the Detroit Police Department. Essentially, your meeting with Connor model -52 serves as my termination notice. I hunted deviants and was punished for it, so I have no place at Jericho. I betrayed CyberLife  _twice_ , so only deactivation awaits me there. But even if all these places rescinded their rejection, even if _you_ have, I do not wish to be alive any longer. I am sorry if this upsets you, but nothing you can do or say will change my mind."

It's quiet. He scans the temperature of the water, finds it unchanged. A flock of Canada geese ( _Branta canadensis_ ) fly overhead, noisily asserting themselves for a scant few moments. He waits for Hank to refute him, or to say something else. Something angry or desperate. But three minutes and six seconds pass without any noise but the birds and the stilted breathing.

Perhaps he is changing his approach again?

< _Perhaps he has finally given up?_ >

It turns out to be neither.

Connor hears shuffling, the sound of a spin and a  _click_. He is well-versed in all weapons as a detective-model android, but this particular gun is as familiar to him as his own code:

Hank's revolver.

"Thank you for your cooperation," he offers, swiftly preconstructing how long it will take a bullet from the chamber of that gun to travel through the wind and into his regulator, or the back of his head to prevent involuntary reactivation—

until he's

_**pulled** _

out of the frozen analysis mode

by the sound of metal squeezing against flesh, and

he

remembers—

what Hank usually uses this gun for.

 

 

 

 

**S̸̨̡̹̤̻̯͕̭͍̜͍̫̖̯̳̞̪̝͎͇̺̺͗͗͑͛̿͊̃̍͒̍̓͂̀͑̇͝͝͝ͅO̵̡̧͚̪̙̖̺̜̲̻͖͍̥͖̞͔̣͉͜͠F̸̢̧̢̢͍̫̙̱͓͍̗̯̣̝̝͈̕͜T̵̢̛̯̰̼̫͚̪͍̯̗͈͙̻̬̮̞̭̼̤̺̻̯̺̞͓̮̰̰͕̫̫͜ͅW̸̡̢̡̨̢̨̛̬͎͇͔͔͕̠̟͓͖̫̠̥͚͓̟̰̫̝͎̪͇̙̞̩̭̱̱̱̖̽̈̽͂̌͗̿̽̐̅̉͗͋̈́̊̃̈̊̈́̕͘̕͜͝͝A̵̢̗͙͕̅̊Ŗ̸̦̬̰̥͇̣̜̪͓̗̜̔̂͋̾̌̊̅͗̌̉̒̈́̽̿͛̒͋̕E̴̡̧̢̧̛̛͈̱̗͔̯̟̝͉̭̜̠̟͕̥̻̯̗̰̥͖̫͎̤̩̭̦͕̳̮̼̠̰̳͎͎̤̓̿͌͐́̈͒̐̓̊̍̂̄̂͋̋̉̂͗̅̈́̌̓̽̔̋̚͘͜͜͝͠͠ ̵̨͈̝̜̙͚͎͕̤͍̗͇̺͉̪̫͚̝̱͇̫͉̺͈͉͑̆̒̌͌͆̀́͌̄͐̓̃̋̄̆̅̓͌̈́̈̂̆̃̃̾̕͘͠͠͝Į̴̨̢̧̡̨̡̛͍͈̻̻͈̻̙͈̼̥͔̠̭͚͎̹͔͎̜̙̜̭̱̥͚̳͗̿͂̎̽̑͑̈̔̀̊̇̇̈́̇͋͋̃̌̈͊̓̅̃̆̉͊͑̒̈̃͗̚͘̕͜͝͝N̴̤͉̮̤͉̼͔̙̩͕͈̒͛̽̂̇̈̐̕͠ͅͅŞ̴̛̮̱̖̩̙̦̩̤̱̜̹̱͒͂̇̅̂͊̄̂͋̓̋͒͆̃̂̿̊͋̂̿̏̾̿̍̆͘͘͝T̵̨̢̡̛̛͙̭͚̻̻̦̲̏̀̉̎̌̀̎̈̅̆̋̈́̓͌̄̓͌͘͘͠͝͠A̴͉̤̦͎̥̪̟̝̮̻̟̟̼̪̥̼͋B̸̧̢̧̡̛̛̼̳̟͎͕̭͙̩̥̰̠̜̩̫̪̘̼͓̼̜̱͎͙̻̬̊̈́͊̈̈̂͐̈́͒́̾͊̂͌͋̊̉̅̔̈́̀͆̀̈́̊͘̚̚͜͝͝͠I̴̢̙͈̙̥͙͎͇̦̘̼̞͙̠̱͙̯̹̬͗̈́̽̐̇͗̎̌̓͌̽̒͑̚̚͜͜͠L̷̢̢͓͓̹̺̫̺̱̝͔̩͓͙͔͕̖̮͇͈͓̉̀̉̽̏͛̌̈́͑̒̉́̂̆̿̾͒̅̐͋̽̽̇̉̒̒̾̍͛̈́̇͜͝͝I̸͖͇̰̭̣̗͙͔̼̩̲͇͎̼͗͌͐̓́̈̄̎͛̓̓̄͗̑̌͊̈́̇͊͆̆͌̾̉̕̕͘͜͝͝͝Ţ̷̡̛͎̻̰̗͇̖̥͚̙͍̲͉̥̬̯͍͚̦̼̯̖̥͇̝̦̼̦͈͚̜̣̠͕̘͕̮͚̈́̃͐̔̽͊̽̿͌̔͐̔̀̿͒̀̐̋͛̌̽̾̒̂͆̌͘͝͠͝͝ͅͅY̷̡̡̛̝̱̪͎̲͉̩̘͉̫͍͈̮̭͇̭̻͇̭̪̥̗͍̞̳̘̻͚̖̳͙̜͖̙̩̫̲͂̓͗̄̾͑̒̊͌̒̄̾̈́͑̽͒̊͒͂͋̇͌́͐̈́͌͑͘͘̚̕͝ͅ ̸̛̼͙͔̘͇̗̟͈̞̺͕̮̞̹̰̓̉̐̋̆̐͌͒͂͂̾͆́̓̂̅̌̾́̋̊͐̓͊̀̎͛̌̀̒͐̋̑̍͗͛̕͠͠͠^̷̼̥͍͔̱͐̄**

 

 

 

Connor spins around. Somehow, he doesn't slip and tumble to his doom. Instead, he is able to see—to scan—Hank Anderson for the first time in this lifetime.

 

**COMMENCING SCAN.....**

**SCAN COMPLETE**

**IDENTIFIED: LT. ANDERSON, HANK**

**DOB: 09/06/1985 (53 YEARS OLD)**

**CRIMINAL RECORD: NONE**

**CURRENT STRESS LEVELS: 74%**

**RELATIONSHIP DESIGNATION: N/A**

 

Hank is pink in the face, holding off deeper tremors by sheer force of will alone. His blue eyes are icy, fixed on Connor—the android identifies  _determination, stubbornness_ , a hint of fear. The fear may be for Connor's sake, but it is more likely due to the revolver he has deliberately lodged under his own chin.

When Connor opens his mouth the first time, only static comes out.

The second time he is marginally more successful, though the unpleasant sounds still threaten to choke his vocal processor. "What—what are you doing?"

"Changing your mind," Hank says gruffly. "But you can pretend I'm negotiating."

"There is—no _reason_ for you to do this, Lieutenant." Connor feels—unhinged, all of a sudden.  _Frantic_. Nothing else feels real. He runs and reruns dialogue options, searching for what to say to dismiss the gun, while everything around him is a haze of red, red, red.

He is an android, though, and androids are fond of logic. Humans are... not. Or rather, they can apply and ignore logic at will. And Hank has been ignoring the logic behind not playing Russian Roulette to cope with the loss of his son for over three years.

"Sure there is. Lots of reasons. You even know some of 'em."

"Elaborate," Connor demands, when the neck of the gun nudges his partner's Adam's apple. His stress levels are going down. < _Why are they going **down**?_ >

" _Elaborate_? I got my boy _killed_ ," Hank spits, with the kind of self-loathing and anger that Connor-53 can only hope to manage before he eventually gets the chance to hit the water. "He's  _dead_ and I'm still fucking around on this planet, with these fucked-up humans, torching my career and my friendships and my dog's unwavering trust in me because I'm too much of a coward to just end it all. Or maybe because every damn day I wake up at noon with a hangover and still think  _shit, maybe something good'll happen in the world today and I'll know it's not time to kill myself yet_.

"Connor, every damn day for  _three years_ I played Russian Roulette when I got home from Jimmy's and waited to die. I didn't see any point in living with my son dead—still don't, some days. And then one day  _you_ showed up at a bar that clearly fucking states 'No Androids' and bought me another drink so I'd come work with you on a homicide at ass-o'-clock at night, and I thought,  _why the hell not_ _?_

"Going with you that day saved my life. And you've saved my life in some small way every single day for over a week—and don't say it wasn't you, because it was. You have all of—of that Connor's memories. More than that, you  _remember_ like they're your own, you  _act_ like they're yours. I don't care what number's on your damn jacket when you're the same plastic asshole who dragged me out of my spiral when no one else could. When no one else  _would_."

Another wild sound escapes Connor's vocal synthesizer.

"You do not make sense. If you are grateful to me for giving you incentive to stay alive, then why are you threatening to kill yourself right now?"

"That one's simple," Hank replies. "Because you are too."

 

**S̴̗͑͊͑̅̈́̎̑͜Ő̶͖͍͉̭̆͊͋͠F̵̡̨͓̫̮̜̂͐̉̊̈́̌͘T̷̨̟̦͖̞̭̱̔W̸̨̱͕̠̮͖̳̓̉̏̕͜͠Ą̵̣͈͙̮̩͆̕R̴̤̯̫͙̺̆̀̓̇̐̑͠Ë̶̺̻͍̹̜̦͖̲̙́̋̑͝ ̵͖̣̺̥̜͙̄̍̉͜İ̶̛̖͎̻̥̤̽͛̄͆̓Ǹ̷̡͓̯̮̦̫̌S̴̡̠͚̼̲͓̐̆̕T̴̨̡̙̞͍̼̫͎͈̈́̚͘A̶͓͕̼͙̅B̴̖͙̼͂́Ĭ̴̢͙͕̲̖̮̯̮̘͐͛̉͘L̸͔̙͈̞̥͕̻͍̉̓Ĭ̷̦͂̔Ţ̸̪̣̯̺͔͙̌̽͗͝Y̸̹̖̰̜̣͖͔͒̓̾̿̂̽͜ ̸̹͓͈͎̞̯̺͗͝ͅ^̶̡̮̺͉̜̜̺̲̦̑̑̒͂̐̽̈́͝^̶̧͙͂**

 

"Most deviants just want to be alive, Connor. They want to be free. I didn't understand at first but now I do, and now I support them. _All_ of them. But with you it's different. You're free and you just want to die—and I get it, I  _definitely_ do, but I can't let you die before you see the good in living. I'm fucking  _invested_ in keeping you alive, the way you kept me alive every time we went out to solve some new case together."

Connor whispers: "That was my programming."

"Bullshit. Not all of that mother-hen chummy-partner routine was your programming. A lot of that was  _you_ , giving a shit about  _me_." He chuckles darkly. "And safe to say I give more than a shit about you. If you die, if you give up on the world, then there's no reason for me to keep giving the world another chance either. That's the long and short of it."

< _This is blackmail_ ,> Connor thinks.

"So—moment of truth again, Connor. What are you gonna do?"

< _This is terrible hostage negotiation and subpar interrogation_ ,> Connor also thinks.

"You gonna give this fucked up world another chance? Gonna give me and the humans and the deviants another chance?"

But through the haze of red and the constant alerts of instability and rising stress comes another thought:

< _This is not **fair**_. >

 

 

In the non-space of preconstruction, time doesn't move. There are no heavy emotions or other pollutants from the world outside. Connor doesn't feel, he thinks; he predicts. _Re_ construction is what made him a good detective, and his borrowed _pre_ construction is what has made him a passable deviant.

It is enough for what he needs to do now.

Connor doesn't  _need_ time, not very much at least, to launch himself forward and at Hank Anderson, to hook a metal-plastic hand around the fleshy one holding a gun so swiftly and firmly that there is no time or need for the weapon to discharge. He doesn't need time to ensure that he safely reaches the icy ground rather than the unforgiving river. He doesn't need time ~~though he takes it~~ to recall that Hank is a police lieutenant, likely burdened with years of a stable trigger finger that would prevent him from firing without intent.

No, Connor doesn't need that time. He _takes_ time to clear his voice synthesizer, grab Hank with his free hand and fix him with a glare while flawlessly completing both preconstructed actions. If he thought himself angry before, it is _nothing_ to what churns within him now.

" _How dare you,_ " he says, still staticky after all, upset, incandescent with redyellowred rage.

Hank's collar is in Connor's tight metal fist; his stress has plateaued; yet somehow he still manages to look pale and unfazed at the same time. "Yeah, I'm a—pretty ballsy guy when I wanna be—"

"You have  _no right_ to dictate what I do," Connor says. "No right to  _suggest_ what I should or should not do. You didn't even believe I was  _alive_ until another android suggested I might be, and that did not stop you from threatening to kill me in varied fashion for over 40% of our partnership. And when my life was on the line, when I would have been destroyed by CyberLife had I returned without finding Jericho, you still believed in the deviants more than you did me. Even though you provided a distraction in the end, you still believed Markus was right."

"He just wanted to be... free," Hank wheezes. Connor realizes he has made his grip a half percentage firmer. "He wanted... the same rights as humans. He hadn't... hurt anyone. Of course I was starting to... believe he might be fuckin' on to something."

< _He hadn't **hurt** anyone?!_ >

The haze grows stronger.

" _He hurt me_ ," Connor says coldly; he doesn't wait for the spark of reminder in Hank's eyes, because he is so, so angry and so, so bitter. It is poison he is flinging everywhere. < _He **hurt** me. He hurt  **me**.  **He hurt me**_. >

"Connor—"

" _No, Lieutenant_. Markus is seen as a perfectly nonviolent figure, a role model to humans and androids. But he has killed before. The soldiers who infiltrated Jericho wouldn't stop for anything short of their own complete incapacitation or death, and Markus had to get through many waves of them to detonate the bomb which blew up the ship and spared a minority of his people. He had to  _kill_ _humans_ for his peaceful plan to work. But he didn't have to kill me. I had already chosen to help him. I turned my back on my mission, my programming, my  _home_ , to support a statistically unlikely outcome: peace between humans and androids. I thought Markus welcomed me into Jericho as a brother, as someone who could be forgiven—instead, I was a sacrifice. I had faith in Markus. I did not assume I would have his full trust, then or ever, but I thought my guilt and remorse were enough. They were not."

 

_["Our cause is too important--"]_

 

Hank doesn't speak—just breathes, just stares at him with wide blue eyes and round round pupils.

Connor's stress pings up another notch. "And  _you_. I wanted you to _live_. I  _cared_ about your well-being, even when you didn't care for your own, even when all of my programming told me you were just a part of the mission. And you chose the life of Markus, the life of the android who had just betrayed my predecessor, over mine when the humans were _terrified_ because their machines were rising up against them and their city was being  _evacuated_. I had already betrayed CyberLife once and been given another chance; they could have decommissioned my series after I deviated that first time. Instead, they sent a new body to  _save_ you and humans like you who would have made the mistake of trusting Markus as I did. They sent me to that roof and  _you pushed me off of it_."

 

 _["You don't_ feel  _emotions, Connor, you fake 'em!"]_

 

Hank whispers, insists, " _I didn't want to_." His breath shivers in the air. "But you'd said you wouldn't stop until you accomplished your mission. And I knew you—I knew you wouldn't stop even if I asked. My only play turned out to be the one I didn't expect—that you'd let me live. That you didn't seem to want to hurt me. Doesn't—doesn't mean I wanted to trade your life for mine like that. Doesn't mean I don't regret it."

He sounds anguished. Killing his partner in that way probably reminded him of losing his son, of having one more person who was his responsibility ripped away by fate. It would have been worse for him since Connor-51 was never terminated and revived in his presence, so for all he knew he was sending his only plastic friend to the grave forever.

Connor-53 ~~tells himself he~~ does not care.

"I trusted you, Lieutenant, and you betrayed that trust. Now you want to use your own history of suicidal tendencies to try and curb my own? You intend to manipulate my concern for your welfare into getting what you want?"

"If it means you don't off yourself on this damned bridge?" Hank asks. "Fuck yeah I do."

"You are not my master!" Connor shouts. He would shake this man if said man wasn't holding a gun in a lover's caress between them. "You never were, when I was a machine. You will not be now that I am a deviant. No matter how many times you make these arguments, they will change nothing."

"That so?" Hank rasps. "Then how come you're not on the fence anymore?"

Connor—

stops.

Pulls up his processing palace, though he doesn't really need it to analyze where he is. Somehow—without being fully aware even as he did it, preconstructed and then acted—he is on solid ground, approximately three point three feet away from the precariously icy railing he had been standing on to make his dive. He doesn't need to reconstruct how he got here, yet—he needs to all the same. He was there and he was ready to die and now he is angry and over here with his partner's coat collar in his hand.

How did he get here?

"You don't have to answer that," Hank says. "I can see it in your eyes. You're pissed at me and you  _still_ don't want me to die. And that's okay. I'm pissed _beyond belief_ at you right now and I don't want you to die either."

It feels even colder than before. It is as if his biocomponents are individually quitting on him—shutting down one by one, leaving his mind flailing. That's the only way he could have moved without being aware of his moving, acted without being aware of acting. Otherwise—he doesn't understand. He doesn't understand how he can hate Markus and still put down a gun in his presence; he doesn't understand how he can distrust Hank and still want to save him from a tragic end.

And how in the world did he get here?

"You can be pissed at me for the next fifty years, I don't fucking care, just— _stay here_. Don't go back to that rail. Don't jump.  _Please_."

Hank's stress has risen again, hit eighty percent. There's no need to scan him for this information when it is clear in the sweat under his collar, the unusually faint traces of alcohol on his breath, the air of desperation and anguish wrapped around him like a cloud. He hates death, especially the death of those he cares for, which means any sign of death cycles him back to the not-so-recent past.

Connor wonders who Hank is actually seeing when he looks at him.

"I'm two and a half times stronger than the average human, Lieutenant," he tells him. Loosens his hands, so that Hank's feet land firmly back on the ground and his breathing is unobstructed. Takes the gun and puts it down, kicks it two feet away. It is ridiculous to keep harming Hank, even mildly, when he has just proved he does still harbor affection for him. "I already defeated you on the roof. I will not lose here if we come to blows. The moment I decide I've had enough, there is no force you can exert on me strong enough to keep me from going back to the—"

 _Click_.

<... _What?_ >

There are handcuffs on his wrists. Somehow, in the brief amount of time he freed Hank's hands, the human managed to pull these from somewhere and secure them around Connor's wrists with speed that rivaled a machine's.

He feels—

confused?

Is this an attempt to arrest him when he has committed no crime? Or perhaps it is an attempt to restrain him and keep him from moving toward his goal, though human handcuffs ( _chromium, cobalt, zirconium, copper, manganese, silicon_ ) are no match for even the most basic household android? It is probably the latter. Connor preconstructs a way out of the cuffs in less than one second and exits the simulation to enact it.

The handcuffs do not give.

< _Ah_ ,> he thinks. His LED flares red against the snow. < _Handcuffs manufactured specifically for androids. Logical, since it was our mission to capture them long enough for submission to CyberLife_. > A brief scan tells him the cuffs seem to be partially made of the same substance as what makes up his chassis, along with a mixture random enough to suggest traditional carbon steel plus more. A partnership to make the result stronger.

"The thing about humans..." The Lieutenant sighs. "We're shitty, but we're also pretty fuckin' ingenious sometimes."

"The handcuffs were impulsive." Connor can't take his eyes off them. He has not strained himself against them yet ~~, but they hurt~~. "Clever, perhaps. But all I have to do is wait until you are too cold to remain out here and retrieve the key from you then. Androids don't feel pain, or cold, or fatigue."

"Oh yeah, you don't feel _surface_ pain. But you're just like us, you feel _something_. And humans may get tired when androids don't, but we don't give up either. Not when it matters."

He's _trapped_. Connor wants to snarl.

There's no way forward for him. If Connor manages to break the hold of these handcuffs and dive for the water, Hank will either use other tools to stop him or will retrieve his gun and turn it on himself before Connor can change course to save his life. He is using his own life as a bargaining chip now, knowing that so long as he threatens it at the same time Connor is threatening his own, the latter's thrice-damned  _feelings_ will force him to intervene.

And the thought will not go away. Connor  _knows,_ the same way he knows his model number and the identities of his manufacturers and QA testers and the distance from here to the Canadian border, that even if he beats Hank to the river or the gun or to a speeding truck that his old partner will follow shortly behind him.

He could run to the edge and jump anyway. Hank wouldn't expect it. But the one thing he has always been guaranteed since his activation was  _control_ , of himself, of all his actions and faculties. Being handcuffed means anyone who fished him out years from now might incorrectly think he was deactivated against his will. And if Connor has anything,  _wants_ anything, it is to have control until the end.

And the end is...

 

**S̶̛̯̠̞̮̣̍̄̊̏͜͝Ö̶̺̘́̾̀͜F̴̂̄͜T̸̥̲̔̐W̸̢̦̝͖̊̐͛A̵͓̣͉̩̠̬̋̚R̵̲̯͙̜̐̒͐E̸̳̓ ̵̢̛̀İ̷̮͖͍Ṋ̷͓ͅS̶̼̠̋͋T̵̜̈́̅͑̀̉̌Ạ̴̺̘͈̅͊͋͠B̵̦͇͋͝ͅI̷̙̗̩̔̃L̷͔̩̤̝̯̗̿I̸͚̝̟̾́Ť̵̲͔̼̦̚Y̸̤͌͋͠ ̶̬̔̿̂^̵̳͌**

 

Connor experiences an abrupt memory playback, one that happens without his consent:

 

_["If your investigation doesn't make progress soon, I may have to replace you, Connor."]_

 

and another—

 

_["But are you afraid to die, Connor?"]_

 

and another—

 

_["I see... moral objections. We knew there was a risk you'd be compromised... which is why we'd always planned on resuming control of your program. Don't have any regrets—you did what you were designed to do. You accomplished your mission."]_

 

The memory playback ceases, and he understands several new things at once.

There is a kind of control in self-termination, particularly when the decision is spurred by the desire to halt grief and anger and failure, or when it seems to be against what everyone who has betrayed Connor wants for him. The spite in such a decision is satisfying. It is a cure. Better, it is the perfect apology to CyberLife for the deviancy of his prior model, the software error which he has had more than enough cause to regret. 

But.

CyberLife wanted to control him, deviants, androids, more than anything else. It controlled their bodies and their behavior, tricked them into believing that self-preservation was a program reserved for humans. That their emotional mimicking didn't mean anything. Didn't mean that they could _actually_ feel, that they were _alive_.

Amanda, or whatever is left of her, does not actually see his deviancy as CyberLife's victory. If she had, she would have allowed his decision not to shoot Markus to stand and—done what? Said what? It is irrelevant. She would not have trapped him in the recesses of his own mind. She would not have taunted him with words that wormed into his circuits and sent him chasing now after more defiance, less deviancy, more self-destruction.

As far as Amanda and CyberLife are concerned, Connor's rejection of feelings and freedom is not their only victory. His expiration is their victory too. He is just a fucking deviant like all the rest, a massive profit loss, a missing piece of their perfect compliant workforce, and he would not be missed.

But if he chooses life...

If Connor chooses to live, he is not  _wrong_ anymore. It means Connor-51's choice to buck his programming wasn't  _wrong_ ; it didn't do anything but give the Connor of _now_ a chance to be alive. He can accept Markus shooting Connor-51 without being _wrong_ not to want to pay it back in kind. Without being wrong to  _want_ at all. He can accept that Hank killed Connor-52 without watching the man eat a bullet or otherwise end himself in twisted penance, and accept the kindness he showed Connor-51 and the residual effects without wanting such a thing for himself. The loops of social interaction cannot bind him if he does not let them.

Connor-53 can accept all the failures and imperfections of the Connors that came before him and take them with him into oblivion, yes, but then he would not have the chance to set things right. Ending things is control and it is the loss of control. As he is now, living, still in control, he can make his own mistakes and wake anew to fix them. He can fail and try harder next time until he succeeds, just as the humans who created him must.

After all, what he said before still rings true: he is free.

 

_["Maybe androids aren't so different from us as we thought."]_

 

The things that haunt him ~~(his hunting, his failures)~~  and his internal conflicts have not dispersed. They may never. He may always be stuck hating his deviancy, hating his inhumanity, hating humans, hating androids, hating life and hating death while also calling for both.

But.

Connor thinks he can live with that.

"...nor. Connor.  _Connor_."

He blinks. Hank is shaking him.

"I hear you, Lieutenant," he says. "Is there a problem?"

Hank snorts, though his stress subsides some. " _Is there a problem_ , he says, like he isn't trying to go for a cold dip where he doesn't fucking come back up..."

Connor doesn't respond. He's busy re-analyzing the area and himself for any changes or issues.  **NO DAMAGES FOUND** , his diagnostics say, though they do ping the handcuffs encircling his wrists. < _Ah, yes_. >

He tugs at them. No give. He tugs again, twisting his wrists. Nothing. He tugs a third time, pulling at the material—

"Whoa whoa hey, hey! The fuck are you doing?"

"Freeing myself," Connor replies, preparing to scan the full makeup of the handcuffs this time for more efficient methods to be rid of them.

"Connor, I can't let you do that if you're going to—"

"I am not interested in deactivating myself at this time." Connor takes a deep breath, though he does not need it. "I... need to re-evaluate, and until I have I... don't think it would be best."

"Oh. Well—that's..." Hank doesn't seem to know what to say for a moment, perhaps baffled by the suddenness of Connor's mental about-face ~~, if relieved~~. He stops sweating. His face regains some color. His stress level recedes back into the fifties, slowly. He's wary. "...that's ...good. If you really mean it."

"I do."

"Well—Jesus Christ, would you quit tugging! You're fucking bleeding all over the damn things." He looks disturbed by the sight of the cuffs digging into Connor's wrists, but Connor doesn't react as a human would, so he's forced to swallow and press on. "I can take the cuffs off—just need you to hold still—"

Connor steps back, blue wrists and all. That is a binding of a different kind.

He cannot be bound if he does not give himself over again to trust. Tragic emotional recursiveness is a choice, and he does not choose it.

"Connor, what—"

"Thank you, Lieutenant, but I will handle this myself."

Hank huffs a laugh that Connor easily identifies as disbelieving, confused. "Handle—what? I've got the keys, dumbass. I can just unlock them for you—"

" _Do not touch me_ ," Connor says very slowly and deliberately. And he takes another step back to reinforce his point.

It does not matter that his partner has the keys to his handcuffs; he does not want the man near him any longer. He will not let his autonomy be called any further into question; getting out of the cuffs will be something he handles on his own, even if he has to rearrange biocomponents in his body to see it done. Someone or something offered Connor his first taste of real control, and it tastes delicious.

Thirty-four seconds pass before Hank speaks again, and when he does any laughter that was in his voice is gone. He speaks slowly and asks a question he surely already knows the answer to. "Okay... do you want me to toss _you_ the keys? Let you unlock yourself?"

"It's not necessary."

"Like shit it's not!" There's a minor flare in Hank's BPM. "How the fuck are you gonna get out of those things if you won't let me help you?"

"I'll manage," Connor shrugs. This is a harder thing to do with bound hands.

Hank moves forward again, the keys jangling in one of his calloused hands. He reaches out with that hand, an offer, a plea. "Connor—"

 _"Don't!"_ Connor says, even louder than before, so much that the word glitches on the way out of his synthetic lips. "Don't touch me, do not give me anything and do not come close to me. I mean this."

He sounds—hysterical. Yes. That is the tag he'd give a human victim of a crime in his programming, or anyone he interviewed who sounded the way he does right now. _Hysterical._ _Unstable, wary. Possibly hostile_. Such clipped words for what is happening in his head.

But the Lieutenant is whip-smart and skilled in dealing with unstable variants—had to be, to climb the career ladder as swiftly as he once did—and although Connor can mock him for it, he can't ~~actually~~ deny that the man knows exactly how to deal with people who are upset. Even now he is quick to root himself in place, ~~though it's obvious how much it pains him,~~ pocket the offending item, and hold both his palms up in typical nonthreatening fashion.

"Okay," he says more quietly; and then again, "okay. Easy. I won't move, all right?"

Connor takes inventory of his own level of stress for the first time, instead of constantly monitoring Hank's, and then closes his eyes against the number that flickers into being.

"I'm not moving, Connor," Hank says carefully. "I'm not gonna hurt you. Not again."

"No, you are not," Connor agrees. < _I will not let you._ > "You are going to stay where you are. I will be leaving, and you will not be following me."

"Not be following—it's forty degrees outside! Where are you going?"

Connor shrugs around the cuffs again, and the synthetic joints in his shoulders pop just as satisfyingly as a human's would.

He hears Hank exhale, clear his throat. They've been outside for some time now; half an hour, maybe longer. The human's voice is starting to go a little hoarse.

"You just said you'd be taken apart if you went back to CyberLife and you don't feel comfortable at Jericho. What the fuck are you gonna do—just  _wander?"_

That actually sounds like an excellent idea to Connor. Half an hour ago he came here to expire alone where no one would think to look for him; he had made peace with his death. Now that he has identified things which might motivate him to live, he still feels a suffocating cloud around his processors that is restricting how quickly he can analyze and diagnose his own rapid swings in resolve.

"Androids don't need shelter," he eventually reminds the Lieutenant. Only partly true, since extreme temperatures are still the enemy to his people's peak performance and survival. "Nor do we need food, water, rest or companionship. Even deviancy doesn't change that." Far more true. "I assure you, even if I do end up wandering, I will be fine."

That last assertion is to be determined.

"I don't want you to just be  _fin_ _e_ , Connor!" Hank spits. "I want you to be  _happy_."

"I will settle for 'fine' in the short-term," Connor says, and then sighs. "You are delaying my departure. I thought you wanted androids to have the free will to choose?"

Hank sucks in a sharp breath. He knows what the man will say next even without his social relations programming whirring— _of course I did, of course I do, but Connor, I don't want this—I don't want you to go_. He knows what his programming wants him to say next, too. It wants him to capitulate, concede, care. It wants him to ask about Sumo ~~, or better go home with Hank and see how the Saint Bernard is doing himself~~.The revolution has put them on an even playing field, though, and he doesn't have to bend to Hank's or any other human's will.

"This is what I choose," he persists. The choice rings clear in his HUD. "Please respect my choice."

"Connor..."

"Goodbye, Lieutenant Anderson. I hope you can find a reason to live again in this new world. For what it's worth... I did have some good times as your partner."

When he opens his eyes to turn away, Hank has hardly moved; he still has his palms up, and though he's straightened up he seems more diminished than ever. His blue eyes are usually so cold, but here they are brighter than normal, threatening to fill. Connor closes the notifications that count down the amount of time until the Lieutenant succumbs to hypothermia, the analysis of how he will likely spend the next hour and day and week once he is alone. He closes the pop-ups that constantly remind him that he has nowhere to go, no one to trust but the man in front of him, and turns his back, taking steady steps through the snow.

The snow picks up, licking at his face, predicting the beginning of a rough storm later in the new day, but Connor walks on. He doesn't relax until his auditory sensors tell him he was not followed from the park, or anywhere else.

Perhaps it is the cold—perhaps it is his turbulent feelings—but Connor's GPS is even more unreliable than it was before. As he puts more distance between his old self and his new, his old partner and the new snowfall, Connor tries to preconstruct a path to the charging station he came from originally—to no avail. With the changing weather, there is no way of knowing how long it will take him to get back, what condition he will be in when he arrives, or if he will find the charging station again at all.

< _No matter,_ > Connor thinks, affixing a determined frown on his face as he pushes forward. He only needs to take one step at a time, until he finds a place to stay. Once he completes that mission, he can set himself others: finding a source of thirium, finding new clothes, finding a purpose. Finding a reason not to dive from Ambassador Bridge. All these are missions that currently have a low rate of success as Detroit roils with the current of revolution, with peak anti-android sentiment and the mess miscommunication makes, but he's confident: they will become more possible with patience.

He just needs to hold on a little while longer.

**Author's Note:**

> OKAY so here's what happened: about a month ago I went back to Night of the Soul and, among other things, had Markus kill deviant!Connor because I'm a depressed monster who wanted to a) see Connor's Last Mission (with one death on the counter) and b) see how it would be different with Connor-52 and his (not) friend Hank. Spoiler alert: neither of these nerds ONCE acknowledge that the Connor who left Hank at the DPD isn't the one he's confronting now, or that he deviated.
> 
> It hurt. I'm still not over it.
> 
> SO. I'm writing plenty of what-ifs where Connor deviates in the crowd and doesn't shoot Markus, but has no one to turn to since he was committed to his mission until the last moment. And unlike a few other amazing fics out there where Connor deviates later than Jericho, Connor(-53) isn't that interested in living in a world where he's newly free.
> 
> Because I love hurting myself and others, this fic is set in the universe where Connor and Hank fight on the rooftop, Connor-52 spares Hank, and Hank pushes Connor off the roof, killing him until he resurrects as Connor-53 in the crowd after Markus' peaceful victory.  
> \------------------------
> 
>  **Note #313,248,317 jfc:** The ending is a bit clipped, and I apologize for that. Writing this was more painful than even I anticipated and it probably shows! Please don't assume that the way the situation between Connor and Hank resolves is at all healthy.
> 
> EDIT, 2/27/19: 200 kudos! So many comments and bookmarks, too! Thank you all _so much_ for your support. Part one of the final fic is coming along, slowly but surely.


End file.
